Living in rural areas is cheaper then in the cities. She lives in town, but its a rural town. College isn't going to cost much for her, she is very smart, she will be able to pay back student loans and what not when she is done. Most people that do what you suggest never end up going to college. And education is the biggest factor in poverty in the US.
That rather depends on the city. and the rural area. without knowing more details there isn't a lot that can be said about that.
when people talk about education and poverty they are talking about basic education.
the kind of people that leave school with no qualifications that can't do basic math, that can't read very well, that can't write clearly. if she's clever enough to get into college she'll hardly fall below the poverty line because she had to settle for a 20k a year job rather than a 40k job. (note that i'm thinking about jobs in the UK not US when I said about salaries).
My parents didn't go to college or university, but they weren't poor.
freestyler said his dad worked on a farm most of his life, now he's buying his son a nice car, that's hardly poor.
education linked to poverty does exist, but only in the people who don't get good schooling, either through failure of the state, (i.e there are not good schools in the area), though more often failure of the individual, -i.e they never paid attention in class and never bothered learning to count.
Also, yes, either way we look at we will be hurt by the people that bought too expensive of houses. I don't think we should be paying for them, but we don't have a choice. If your equity falls below your debt, you are in debt, and the bank will take back what it owns. That's how it works.
We DO have a choice, we can say no! we don't want to pay other peoples bad debts and loans.
just as a slight point of what you said, "if your equity falls below your debt, you are in debt and the bank will take what it owns"
that's not true.
if it were how do you explain >100% mortgages, where people actually borrow more than the value of the house? they are in negative equity from the start!
if the equity of the property falls below the value of the loan that you owe, then you have reached negative equity. not that you have reached a level of being in debt.
That doesn't mean that the bank will foreclose,
banks only foreclose on debts when there is little chance of you being able to pay it back, or when you default on your payments etc...
And I stand by what I said before,
markets are cyclical, those that haven't extended themselves too far are the ones that will be able to keep hold of their homes.
and yes, the value of those homes may go down at the moment, but the market will pick up again, and the value will go up again.
It's all very well to say that you'll help the guy down the road pay off his mortgage, but what about when the market picks up again. and he sells his house making a profit, a profit from your tax dollars that helped him pay for his house? how do you feel then?
you were sensible enough not to overextend yourself, you don't fall into the sub-prime category, you're a responsible borrower. -you still feel the pinch as everyone is, but you planned for that and you're able to ride it out.
The guy down the road wasn't sensible, he just wanted a nice house, you'll have been forced to help pay for it, and then he can make a profit from it?
I think that the right way to go would be to not pay peoples mortgages for them, but to offer financial incentive to the banks to not reposes or foreclose. to offer financial incentive to employ more people as creditor attached debt advisers, people who can say, well you'll struggle to pay off that 100k loan in ten years, so how about we work out a new payment plan, say over 20 years so that the payments are manageable now,
when the economy picks up again people may choose to carry on paying at a reduced rate over a longer period, or may choose to pick up their payments to get the loan paid off faster.
just giving money away to those people who can't or didn't plan for their future, who over extended themselves, and got into trouble is wrong.
and I don't care whether it's a global problem or not, giving money away just accelarates the problem.
For example, I know that the government doesn't want to see people loose their homes, so why don't I say 'nuts to it' I'd quite like a new car, I'd quite like a new TV, a new motorbike would be nice as well. a New PC might be nice since I've only got my work laptop. my house repayments don't matter, because the government will pick up the tab of my excess? -and you'd actually support that?
This is exactly what's hurting our country right now. People can't seem to put their political differences aside, and work together to make best of what we currently have. The election is over.
